Baltimore Orioles: Has Hunter Harvey’s Star Lost Its Luster?

Injuries have kept Baltimore Orioles prospect Hunter Harvey off of the field at times.  That lack of playing time is hurting his status as a top prospect.

Recently, some of the writers here at Birds Watcher collaborated on our Baltimore Orioles Top 10 Prospects list.  A comment made about that post got me thinking.  One reader said, “Hunter Harvey should still be in top 10.” Since Harvey did not get a single vote for the Top 10 by the writers here, I thought I would look into where others considered him among the top prospects in the Baltimore Orioles organization.

Harvey was drafted by the Orioles in the first round (22nd overall) of the 2013 MLB Draft out of Bandys High School in North Carolina; he is the son of former MLB pitcher Bryan Harvey.

A highly touted prep prospect, Harvey pitched for both the Gulf Coast Orioles (Rookie) and the Aberdeen Ironbirds (A-Short) during his debut season and performed well enough to be considered the Orioles #4 prospect by MLB Pipeline.

The first of Harvey’s injury issues manifested itself when the right-hander was shut down for the season in July of that year for what was called elbow inflammation.  Despite that injury, he moved up to #2 on the Orioles’ top prospect list.

Harvey missed the entire 2015 season after being struck first by a comebacker to his fibula in minor league camp and then by a return of elbow soreness as he attempted to return to action from that leg injury.  He was considered the #1 prospect in the organization, without having thrown a single pitch for a full year.

The 2016 season saw Harvey make five starts before having mid-season Tommy John surgery on his right elbow.  He returned from that in July of 2017 and made a total of eight starts over three levels (GCL, Aberdeen and Delmarva).  Harvey showed signs of what had been expected of him as he finished with a cumulative 0-1 record with a 0.96 ERA over 18.2 innings of work.

Assigned to Bowie (AA) to start the 2018 season, Harvey was expected to finally live up to expectations.  Long considered the future savior of the pitching staff by the majority of the fan base, he further energized fans when he was called up to the big club in April.  Sadly, he sat in the bullpen for two days before being sent back to the Baysox.  It was there that the injury bug returned.

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Harvey hurt his shoulder in June when he dodged a foul ball while in the dugout and suffered more elbow soreness in August while rehabbing from that.  He made just nine starts in all of 2018 and fell to #8 on the MLB Pipeline prospect list.

Even though the fan base has considered Harvey a top prospect, the fact that he cannot stay healthy kept me from including him on our Top 10 list.  A search of the web shows that I am not alone in my assessment of his ranking.  Harvey is not among the team’s Top 15 prospects as listed by Baseball Prospectus, he is not in Dean Jones of BaltimoreBaseball.com’s Top 12 list and is listed at #12 as well by Prospects 1500.

Additionally, Baltimore Sports and Life rates Harvey at #12 and Luke Siler of Orioles Hangout sees him as #14 in the system.  The consensus simply is that Harvey is no longer a top 10 prospect in the system.  He has the potential, but until he can show the ability to pitch for an entire season and live up to that potential he cannot be considered a top prospect.

I am not saying that Harvey will not factor into the future for the Orioles, I am saying he needs to pitch injury free.  I hope he can and regain his spot among the Orioles’ top prospects.  I am eager to see where he rates on MLB Pipeline when the Orioles’ top-30 list is published on February 18th.

Hunter Harvey has a place in the Baltimore organization, let’s hope 2019 is the start of him claiming that place.